There is a plethora of box types existing in the marketplace, such as for example those with small or large dimensions, re-usable or disposable, thin or thick, composite or single-ply structured, rigid or flexible, foldable or non-foldable, and the like.
In order to reduce cost of manufacturing, transportation, manipulation by a middle- or end-user, as well as other costs, foldable boxes are becoming increasingly popular. For the same reasons, monolithic (one piece) unfolded boxes containing primary folding lines are provided to retailers, who fold them on demand to enclose an item to be sold to the consumer.
Some of these boxes are easy to dispose of, because they may be either small, or flexible, and the like. However, there is a category of boxes, which have large and/or awkward dimensions and high rigidity, with large flat segments both before and after the box formation, which present considerable difficulty in bending and further folding for disposal. A representative type of such boxes, which are difficult to discard, are the pizza boxes. These boxes come usually in a monolithic form to the pizza-House or establishment, and they are folded around primary folding lines to form boxes having very large flat segments. These boxes are of different shapes, such as for example square, hexagonal, octagonal, and the like. The primary folding lines may be perforations, indentations, slits, cuts, or any other weakening lines, or configurations, very well known to the art of box formation. These lines provide weakening of the integrity of the unfolded box along their length, so that the unfolded box can be shaped around the weakening lines. No good way has been suggested so far by the art for utilizing folding lines on the large flat segments of the box for the purpose of future destruction of the box by folding. Therefore, there is a strong need for a mechanism on the flat segments, which does not interfere with the formation of the box or with the function of the box during its useful life, but which mechanism may be activated at will and provide means for easy destruction of the box for disposal.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,189,436 (Rosenfield), 2,244,940 (Carruth), 2,671,593 (Page), 2,807,405 (Lambert), and 4,228,918 (Kellogg), disclose boxes which are characterized by a large multiplicity of primary fold lines which are positioned in a way to form substantially curved configurations, like for example substantially circular side wall structures.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,845,976 (Miller) discloses a collapsible roll-up container with a series of flat members each formed with a tendency to coil. The spring structure of this box, however, is expensive to make and it does not provide adequate rigidity for end-uses such as pizza boxes, and the like.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,040,721 (Essak) discloses a collapsible box with a stiffening insert.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,110,038 (Pantisano) discloses a standard corrugated pizza box which is provided with slit-cuts cut through the top panel of the pizza box in a shape to cut off four circular serving plates with a beveled raised edge and two cross-slit cuts through the bottom panel of the pizza box separating the pizza box into four essentially equal portions for disposal. Pantisano's arrangement is based on tearing the box apart, and it does not provide the simple folding operation offered by the present invention, wherein there are latent destructive folding lines perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the box and parallel to each other.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 664 835 (Czarniecki), 2,037,675 (Boothby et al.), 3,473,723 (Bolling, Jr. et al) and 4,365,738 (Densen), as well as French Patent 1,302,573 show various collapsible boxes.
None of the above references or any other reference known to Applicant disclose, mention or suggest a foldable box as described and claimed hereinbelow.